Letters for personal catharsis

Cracked Lens

The Universe sent a couple of caring people to comment on my blog. Just when I needed it. There are days when a compliment will fly right past me; I’m just going too fast. Then there are other days, days like yesterday, when my spirit feels dry and dusty and any word kindly given is like a drop of fresh, clear water: I drink it in completely. Thank you, kind blog travelers. Thank you so much.

The deed is done. I didn’t write to my brother until this morning. As usual, I gave myself a minimum of 24 hours to stir the stew cooking on the back burner in my brain. Naturally, I had a few moments of second guessing myself. Thinking that maybe I would just keep silent, like I always do. That’s where the kind comments came in: they kept popping up in my head, telling me I wasn’t insane, I haven’t imagined all of this, it really did happen and I really do have a right to feel the way I do. My first thought was to attack (literally) my brother with his own words – cull through his FB page and pull every offensive piece of shit off his comments and throw them back in his face. But when I looked at his page and his comments, everything was so inflammatory that it dredged up equally inflammatory responses from me. I’ve no desire to start a mud slinging contest. So instead I wrote this:

Many of your posts over the past six months have bothered me. I don’t care that you don’t like Hillary; screw that. But I’ve read a number of things that have made me think you’ve supported Trump. You can’t agree with someone who thinks women are only pussies there for men to grab and then turn around and claim to “love” anyone. If you don’t respect me as a person, you could never love me. And if you support Trump, you don’t respect me as a person.

I am disabled. I am a woman. These are my basic truths. If not for T, I’d be long dead with this disease and my inability to even get the fuck off the toilet some days.

There is no WAY I could ever hold a full time job again.

All of Trump’s rhetoric would say I’m a loser. I shouldn’t have any help because I can’t work. I’m not worth the money for the expensive medicines that allow me to walk like a normal person. Hell, if I threw in a statement that I was a lesbian, Trump supporters would probably be lining up to shoot me.

Would you be in the front line?

My friends are gay, and disabled, and colored. They are not Christians. They – WE – are everything Trump’s America hates. How can you scream hate at me when I stand with them, then tell me in private you love me? Doesn’t work.

I’m not writing this to make you feel bad. I’m writing this because it’s my truth. And I think it’s time you heard my truth.

*applause* Brava to me. I read nothing that is accusatory, just simple statements. I talk about my feelings. I talk about my truth. I even think I managed to write something that he could respond to, if he doesn’t get triggered by something I’ve said (a big possibility). I expect nothing. After all, he rarely communicates with me. That doesn’t matter. What matters is I said what I needed to say without being hateful. Most important, I hit the send button. Any second guessing time is gone. My words are out there, and now part of reality.

Of course, I did not address any of the unspoken undercurrents in the family. Not brave enough to do that! I had a lifetime of my sister saying I was crazy, that I didn’t remember things correctly, that I was wrong, wrong, wrong. Didn’t need another sibling doing that to me. So I addressed the easy stuff: the political front.

He can’t – and won’t – deny any of that.

Meanwhile, at home….

Got out for a walk in fresh air yesterday. I’m still off my exercise regime. Hell! I’m still eating birthday cake. Just trying at this point to keep my waistline from expanding too much from my celebrations. As my b-day cake dwindles, my push to get back to the gym increases (I could draw a graph of that inverted relationship for you!). My smoking is, alas, back to the far too much stage. Thank you, birthday celebrations! 😉 I’ll need to get strict with myself on that one. But I’ve also noted my nose is clogged up more often, I cough more, and I have more phlegm when I smoke. And I don’t like any of those side effects. So now there’s an extra incentive – just feeling better physically – to quitting. That helps.

Still feeling very frustrated with the Dutch language. It feels like I get 90% of it, but that remaining 10% holds the key to the whole thing. My Friday teacher isn’t helping. I’ve named him Mr. P, after a high school English teacher I had. Mrs. P (it was a woman) thought it was her job to ‘take students down a notch’ so she was always critical to the point of abusiveness in class. Mr. P isn’t that bad – yet – tho he’s leaning that way.

Doing my best to stay calm. To not explode. “Best” means that at a certain point I stop asking my questions and just accept whatever he’s saying as a fact, no matter how counter-intuitive or illogical it seems to be. It’s not easy. Especially when there’s one or two students who like to look at me when this happens and talk over the teacher, all of them telling me I don’t get it. Eeep! Just heard in my head ‘all of them telling me I’m wrong’. Wrong is a trigger word for me. Big one. Huge one. Maybe the biggest of all.

It’s not that I don’t feel I could be wrong! Been wrong so much in my life I could hardly deny the possibility of it existing now! But why such a big deal about it? Why do I feel my ‘wrongness’ is thrown back in my face so much?

When I begin to feel like I’m hearing about my ‘wrongness’, the room gets strange. Sounds increase. Faces seem to grow bigger and exaggerated. I know I’m getting a skewed image of what’s going on. I don’t know how to stop it. And language class is hardly the place for confrontation or explanation of any kind. I don’t need people looking at me stranger than they do now.

Hm. Perhaps I’ll never know. I’ll never know if my perception of situations are ‘correct’ or not. They are only my perceptions, and I accept that I see the world through a cracked lens. And maybe ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ don’t really matter. Maybe the only thing that matters IS our perception. Our take on the reality around us that shapes us as we shape it.

Currently a final year English student at the University of Cambridge. Producing Intern for Fuel Theatre July-October 2016. Aspiring Arts Administrator/Theatre Producer, blogging about my projects (mostly).

#ActuallyAutistic - An Aspie obsessed with writing. This site is intend to inspire through sharing stories & experiences. The opinions of the writers are their own. I am just an Autistic woman - NOT a medical professional.